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An Honest Look at Evangelical Church Systems || SLP415 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 415 of the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't know me, I work at Speak Life, and it's always a great privilege and joy for me to be able to introduce these podcast episodes.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're very thankful for all of you who listen to our podcast out of all the podcasts you could be listening to.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we do pray that our episodes are a great blessing and encouragement and are challenging to you in the right ways and to all of us in the right ways.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And today really is a bit of a different episode.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's Nate Morganlock of Speak Life interviewing Glenn Scrivener, also of Speak Life, about a recent article that Glenn wrote for Evangelicals Now.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Evangelical Futures, BWW's The Blokesworth Watching Conveyor Belt.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you can read it on the Evangelicals Now website.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll post a link to that in the show notes.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We recommend reading the article.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't read it already, this discussion does kind of go through the points of the article, so it will hopefully make sense even if you haven't read the article.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: But feel free to pause the episode now and read it or read it after the episode.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, without further ado, I will hand over to Nate Morganlock and Glenn Scrivener.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hello and welcome to Speak Life.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Nate Morganlock, and here we have another edition of Blokes Worth Watching.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: The show that identifies blokes who are coming up within the church.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Worth watching, worth keeping your eye on, and how we can uh funnel them into full-time ministry.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Put them on the conveyor belt.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Shurn them out.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: I am joined by another bloke who you're watching.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: A young bookcomer.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, according to Evangelicals Now or Evangelical Snow, as I sometimes call it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do you also say hundred-foot hose instead of ten of those?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: That was my other one.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: It says Glenn Scrivener, Evangelical Futures.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now it's worth saying that your name is resting on Evangelical Futures, but in fact Evangelical The Evangelical Future is resting on my name.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's resting on you.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um we've called this uh extraordinary meeting is uh to address this article that you've written in Evangelical Snow.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it is called I hope it is there in the center spread, page 17 of the July 2022 edition.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: BWW's The Blokes Worth Watching Convey About.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Glenn, what's the gist of this argument?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh it just goes to show that they are much better headline writers than I am.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: My my working title was I I'm even ashamed to say what what my my Come on.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, all right.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: What did you write?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote Wonky Wonky Trellis Wonderful Vine.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Wonky Trellis Wonderful Vine.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: And now you know why they changed it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Spiced it up.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they they put a frame on it, which I think probably got more people to read it than your Wonky Trellis Vine would have done.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: Although that would have established uh Trellis and the Vine.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: Which you reference in the first sentence.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, the first thing I reference is the Trellis and the Vine, which is the name of a 2009 book by Cole Marshall and Tony Payne that talks about um church structures that are necessary in order for the vine to do its thing.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And part of the the article is talking about whether our structures are fit for purpose, whether they've become wonky, and uh therefore whether they have kind of trained the vine to go in certain directions.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, one of the things I raise in the article is the BWWs, which I was only um alerted to while I was at Bible College.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: And somebody came to Bible College who was uh very much a champion of the BWWs and this whole system of church leaders identifying blokes worth watching.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And taking them from whatever future they might have had in industry or education or the arts or whatever, and getting them onto the conveyor belt towards ministry training and Bible college and ordination to become the one who watches the blokes to identify the next generation of blokes worth watching.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And although I'd never seen it diagrammed and it was diagrammed, and although I'd never heard the acronym before, things started to make sense about why the vine had gone in certain directions because of this particular trellis.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: So the tr the the system is designed to produce or the the results are the the the come straight out of the system.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: So you look at the um the way that the ministry philosophy has sort of come about, and you say, well, cool, this is all intentional.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um but blokes worth watching, I don't think that's the original definition of those terms, BWW.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the acronym.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: What I what I've learnt through Twitter is that the acronym originally referred to boys worth watching, and it was part of the CAMPS scheme.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that you were which which again is something else that I reference in the article.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Part of the trellis that has produced this particular subculture within the evangelical church has been based in the camps system, in which you have you know the thirty top public schools sending their top pupils, their top boys to the camps to be discipled, and they were boys worth watching.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then here is another example of the ways in which the camp system has not simply produced camps and produced boys from the camps, but has produced a a culture beyond the camp system, and it has been more widely a culture-wide phenomenon, whereby instead of looking at the young 13-year-old from Harrow, you're looking at the young twenty-two-year-old who's studying at Warwick University or whatever, and and they are the one that you are priming for a particular kind of ministry, which again, you know, someone like uh John Stott, who was right in on the ground floor of some of these camps, and um and certainly a a part of that system, nevertheless, would be sort of turning over in his grave if you talked about ministry when what you really meant was full-time pastoral church ministry on the staff of a church.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's part of the conveyor belt.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: We want to take boys, blokes, and yeah, and you can sort of see in in that public school system that uh well they're generally you know boys' schools, and there are boys who are worth watching in a whole bunch of different areas.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: There are boys who are being thought of, oh maybe he's gonna be a new cricket captain, or this lad'll be a great asset to have on the first 15, or this person is destined for you know greatness in this particular area.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so you can see how the boys worth watching dynamic is then just applied wholesale without real biblical critique to um the the the ministry juggernaut, which sort of comes out the back of that.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um but of course, when you're referring to it bloke's worth watching, um I believe that's a much more Australian term.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was the signification of the public school system, yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well hence bloke.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it was it was certainly someone from Sydney who was um articulating this particular ministry philosophy.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, you can go to 1 Timothy 2 verse 2 for biblical warrant, in which Paul is telling Timothy to identify, you know, elders for the church and those to whom he can pass on the baton um of of church ministry.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I don't think that necessitates the the same conveyor belt that we're talking about here.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you want to look at the the burden of Paul's writings and then the burden of the pastoral epistles, I don't think you get a BW BWW system.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, well, not many of you are from noble birth, I mean sort of slightly undermines the whole blokesworth watching kind of thing.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um let me push back a little on this, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because I it sounds as though uh on on the the Twitter sphere this has been overwhelmingly positive.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Lots of people going, oh, this BWW thing, Glenn.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: You've you've identified something that we all kind of knew, you've named it, and you brought it out into the open.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let me just uh ask a couple of questions that might help you to sort of qualify some of the stuff here.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: First question is what year was this conversation that you had with this uh young man on your prospective student day for Bible college?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: What year are we talking about?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean I mentioned a time when I am taken around the Bible college with my wife as we're trying to weigh up which seminary that we'll train in for Anglican ministry.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: This would therefore have been about 2003.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um and there's lots to be said about that.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: So in in the conversation, he said, Are you looking at any other colleges?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Yes, there's a college that others of my friends are going to.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't it be fun to do um theology with them?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Well, you don't want to go to that particular college that I named, because there at the end of a lecture they say, it could be this, it could be this, or it could be that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want that, you want the answer.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, what happens if you happen to disagree with the answer that's given at this establishment?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: He said they'd shoot you down.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: With with sort of tongue in cheek, if they'd shoot you down.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Really?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they're they're very thought through.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, what if you bring Bible verses?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: How would they handle that?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he was instantly like interested, like, what do you want to disagree about?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Well, I don't know yet.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is that what I found at this institution?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: I found at this institute, I'm just it was Oak Hill, it was Oak Hill Theological College uh in North London.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: What I found was a very rich theology that was given.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was I was pressed there to study biblical languages at a depth that I would never um have been pushed to in other places.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was pushed systematically.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I think I was pushed to read in church history in ways um that uh I perhaps wouldn't have been at other institutions.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I did find that there was a rich um theology there to be um enjoyed and pressed into.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: And actually at the end of my article here, I say one of our one of the great dearths in our little subculture is that we always preference the the thumbnail evangelistic outline instead of the theology and the richness of the theology.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I I would say that circa 2004 um the lectures that I heard at this college um were were not the same as the caricature that this student gave, though the caricature was recognizable.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I and I would say there were certain issues uh which I would have considered to be secondary matters that were considered to be beyond the pale, and I was told I was outside the camp for certain views that I thought this is this is odd.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is odd.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So um so it's a it's a mixed report, really.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I think I did find a theologically rich education there, um, but I also found some of these cultural issues that we're talking about.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the this particular lecture in which Blokesworth watching is proclaimed with its signification, um uh w in which you're told that that's around the same sort of time, so that's 2005, maybe something like that.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: So, but we're talking about something's nearly 20 years ago and at the just just mark the difference for me between there is a single conversation with a student who might just have you know be a particular oddball, he's a fanboy for a college, that's why he's showing prospective students around, because he wouldn't want them to go anywhere else.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: And there is a single lecture of this new ministry dynamic, blokes worth watching.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's not individual cases, but it also wasn't your general experience.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: How is how would you say that given that particular time nearly 20 years ago, it was a culture that was recognizable, it was a caricature that was recognizable, and now nearly 20 years on from that?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's fair enough.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: In in terms of that conversation with one student that was taking me around, um, part of that tour, we were introduced to the dining room, in which a motto is on the wall, be right and persist.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which was also uh seemed to go hand in hand with that kind of mentality.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have got it all sewn up.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: The only the only thing to do is to keep going with this, and those who are on the outside are are kind of threatening.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that that conversation um is just one conversation.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: The motto, though it was not the motto of the Bible college, it was the motto of the found uh uh founding family of the college, and it was something under which we ate our lunch sort of every day.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: But it was written in English, it wasn't written in Latin.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: It it it might have it might have sounded you know slightly less prosaic and s naff if it was in Latin.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Put it in Latin.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's the there's the answer.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's the answer.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's the solution.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Put it in Latin.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because only blokes worth watching will recognize what it means.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's your answer to everything, isn't it?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Gnosticism.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I think.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Put it in Latin.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, so that one conversation is one conversation.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think the blokes worth watching thing has been a strategy.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it and it has recognizably shaped uh certain parts of the trellis.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in the in whatever pushback there's been on this, nobody's pushed back on the fact that that has been a thing, that it has been a shaping thing.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and certainly in those who have been sympathetic to the article, it's something that's really leapt out at people.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and so there's women who so Nay Dawson and Sarah Pike, I've sort of retweeted on on my Twitter if if you want to find it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um they've talked about their own experiences and how the the bloke's worth watching Conveyor Belt has shaped things for them.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: But also men saying, well, I either I was overlooked because I wasn't the kind of bloke that was worth watching, or I recognized in myself that I was trying to project the certain attributes that they were looking for, and there was a shallowness to pick me, pick me, senpei, you know.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's there's all sorts of distorting things that have gone on, and I and I think perhaps they they chose the right headline in that because I think that's that's found a lot of sympathy.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So so I I would say on the BWWs that is definitely uh a goal and a strategy that has been stated many times and that has been followed through many times.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um Is is Twitter more populated by those who weren't considered cloaks worth watching than those who were?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Does the democratization of it gives a voice social media mean that people who were overlooked for whatever reasons that therefore the an article like this is gonna get a lot more traction there than than elsewhere?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, many fewer people are gonna be invited by evangelicals now to write on the article, and anyone can tweet, you know.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: So um absolutely it gives it gives a voice to those who've been overlooked by systems.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and interestingly, I think the pushback that I've had probably probably just two individuals out of scores of people who've gotten in touch very positively, um, two individuals have sort of pushed back somewhat, but neither of them have done it on Twitter, and I can understand why, you know, as as soon as you get retweeted a few times, then the conversation is flowing in one direction, and it would be very difficult for someone to swim back in the other direction, even though I, you know, put out there I recognize that on Twitter people are sympathetic to this.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Is there pushback?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Love to hear it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and would still love to hear it, and I'll I'll watch the letters to the editor in the next edition, and I'm I'm quite sure there will be some.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: And is part of the reason that you felt that you needed to write this because you felt you were overlooked as a bloke worth watching?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Is there any sense in which you you decided that you didn't want to play the pick-me game?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Removed yourself from that and therefore had a an ability to look from the outside and critique.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well I'm I'm the smart aleck, so I would be the smart aleck at the back of the lectures anyway.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of sticking my hand up, sticking my oar in, you know.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So at at Bible College, at the at the end, you're meant to sort of do a little biography of yourself for prospective church leaders, because they might pick you.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: But instead of playing the game about, you know, what a safe pair of hands I might be, if you were to give me a curacy, um, I just I just picked um 1 Kings 18, verse 13, where Obadiah says to Elijah, Did you not hear what I did when King Ahab was persecuting the prophets of the Lord?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: I hid them in caves in 50s and kept kept them fed and watered for three years.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this is my verse for Bible College.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is what Bible college is.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, Bible college is basically hiding prophets of the Lord away from persecution, just keeping them fed and watered for three years while they debate eschatology or something like that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've always been that kind of you know, voice crying in the wilderness of a person.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to play your game.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's a reverse snobbery.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: I get that.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: And yet, uh Glenn I'm a centifold.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're a centerfold, page 17.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: And if I well, it goes on to page 19 as well.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Go a little bit further down.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: You're on page 20, everyday evangelism.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Go a little bit further again through evangelical snow, and what do we find?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: How Christianity shaped us a review of The Air We Breathe by the Reverend Glenn Scrivener.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: Out now from all good bookstores.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: So um, how long can you play the outsider card if you are probably now one of the maybe not a bloke worth watching, but a bloke who everyone is watching?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, my days are numbered.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Voice crying in the wilderness is over, really, isn't it?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and and at that stage you you've got to therefore shoulder responsibility for some of the some of the wonky trellis that you're helping to build.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and here is Speak Life, and Speak Life is as a parachurch ministry, we are all trellis and no vine.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, the dangers, the dangers for me and the dangers for whatever well-intentioned um well well-intentioned desires for ministry that I have, they can go off because blokes worth watching was well-intentioned.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: One hopes boys worth watching, perhaps, was well-intentioned.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Be right and persist.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Seemed like it could be wrong.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Give up.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Although if you are wrong, yeah, you will maybe ought to give up.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all these things are well-intentioned, so is it very possible that in 15 years' time um someone will decry what I'm saying?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: But okay, so I mean, just just lobbying, you know, or maybe not lobbying.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Shining a light on a a ministry dynamic and a a what is it, wonky uh trellis.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's not very memorable, is it?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: You really and you end the article with this.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: You talk about you a better vision for you know the wonderful vine and how the vine ought to be.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that I think is something that we obviously at Speak Life are trying to encourage people in.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: Cultivate to use the horticultural analogy.
• 21:17
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• 21:20
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• 21:27
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• 21:31
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• 21:33
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• 21:36
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• 21:41
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• 21:47
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• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get back to the podcast.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: What what do you think is the the the true and better option than having this you know sort of approach to the Bible, approach to ministry, approach to evangelism, whatever it might be.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: For for those who haven't read the article, I I I talk about three areas.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one is I very much appreciate our church's biblical focus.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: We want to handle the Bible correctly, want to give Bible um knowledge to people and all that kind of stuff.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, the shadow side to that is that we can give all Bible and know Christ, which is the whole John 5 problem.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: The whole John 5 problem is you diligently study the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: These are the scriptures that testify of me, says Christ.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you've refused to come to me to have life.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So have we been sufficiently Christ-focused such that my job, if I'm preaching this Sunday on Matthew chapter 12, um actually, that is not my job this Sunday.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: My job is to preach Christ from Matthew chapter 12.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I'm preaching from Ecclesiastes chapter 12, well, my job is to preach from Ecclesiastes chapter 12, to preach Christ from Ecclesiastes.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I really want to get back to a kind of a Christ focus.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Then another thing that I really um genuinely appreciate from our kinds of churches is a missional focus.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Evangelism is a high priority.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And in the churches that invite me in to do evangelistic mission, um, they've got a priority on opening up the scriptures and pointing to Jesus and and saying, let's let's be biblical in our evangelism in all that we do.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that and I love being evangelistic.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: But does that mean that there's a shadow side where everything is boiled down to evangelism?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: The the whole point of the Sunday sermon is to get you ready for the water cooler on Monday morning to have the conversation with a co-worker about about Jesus.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you lose discipleship, you lose worship.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Do we have a do we have a do we go to Sunday to worship the Father in the name of the Son and by the power of the Spirit?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um Or are our Sundays do we we don't want to freak people out?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: So we want lowest common denominator.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: We wouldn't say lowest common denominator, but we we want to be, we want to explain everything.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Explain the Bible.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And we want to explain, if we have any liturgy, we want to explain it and make the everything as smooth and and outsider-friendly as we possibly can.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Do we trade away discipleship?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Do we trade away worship there?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then ministry philosophy.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I do like a ministry philosophy that says let's get the Bible open with people, but are we are we much more oriented around a ministry philosophy?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Do we have gospel partnerships around a ministry philosophy more than around a rich theology, which is much is a much deeper thing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's where the that's where the article goes.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um and the I suppose one of the things I was thinking as I looked through some of the sort of responses you got on Twitter on onto the article, was a number of people saying there is a scope to this problem.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: There it you can sort of you can't throw a blanket over it and that's where they all are.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: But to say there are other areas of the evangelical church, even the conservative evangelical church, even though people might not claim that theologically they are more conservative churches, in which these types of problems aren't so uh so obvious and aren't so acute, and people aren't struggling with them in the same way.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: Is there any sense that you feel the encouragement of Elijah being told, you know, there are thousands who have not bowed the knee to Baal and and you don't need to feel like you're you're the only one?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, sort of lift your eyes and see the the there's great encouragement in the vine around the church in the UK.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um not undermining the significant problems and the abuse issues which still are unresolved in in some of conservative evangelical churches.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I think I pledge to be thrilled wherever this stuff is transcended, as long as others pledge to be um contrite where this stuff holds.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: So um so I retweeted Dave Williams, who who wrote a thought a couple of thoughtful um sort of blog responses uh to this, one kind of more about the Bible college and another about there are there are there's more than you know the there is more to the vine than what this trellis has kind of allowed there to be.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: And for that I give great thanks.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I I do think there's there's also got to be a sense of to the degree that the shoe fits, will we wear it?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I and I think it's it's my fault that the spicier stuff at the begin is at the beginning of the article, and you know, the the tour with you know an impressionable student um is does capture the imagination in a way that my three points at the end of the article don't.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And if people say, okay, that that story is just one story, you know, evangelicalism goes much wider than that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, true, but can we can we apply these these three you know tests about are we really Christ focused or just Bible people?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I I see that everywhere far beyond far beyond Anglican circles, far beyond Anglican circles.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Just the desire to explain the passage, and then like the the comeback on that, oh no, we don't just explain the passage, we also apply the passage.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, where is Jesus in that?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Are you heralding Jesus from the passage?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, we explain and apply, and that's that's that's where we really so this problem goes way beyond Anglican circles.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but even the camps thing goes way beyond the camps.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the talk structures for Ewan became like the early weeks of Alpha.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and you know, the the the phrase in there that I think needs most grappling with is where I say our gospel presentations leave us with a dead Christ and a living resolve.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's everywhere.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's not just, you know, that's I don't care what school you went to.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't care what Bible college you went to, that's a real problem in evangelicalism more broadly.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the four points, you know, there's creation full, you know, redemption and then choice.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Again, John, you know, John Stott's four planks were creationful, redemption, and consummation at the end.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Our gospel presentations have have boiled it down to after the cross comes the choice.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and so everything gets boiled down to you and your living resolve, the bridge diagram.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus died for you, but now will you use Jesus to get to God?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Will you make that choice?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: Will you make that resolve?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the choice we all face is the framework that's put around an otherwise reformed vision for the Bible and evangelism.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Two ways to live is framed as the choice we all face.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: So there is there are problems that go far beyond which Bible college you went to and which public school you were at.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you I you know, if you've ever heard of Jonathan Fletcher or haven't heard of Jonathan Fletcher, it goes far beyond that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think um there are conservative evangelical circles in which ministry philosophy does function as the center where theology ought to have been.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: A rich theology ought to have been.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Oak Hill, I I do think, has been part of the solution to that in some ways, because I think it does offer a a richer theology than you know some of the the boiled down gospel outlines um have offered.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it it it goes broader, it goes it goes broader than you know than the constituency for evangelicals now.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And if you could if you could read the responses that I'm getting via email on Facebook, on Twitter, you know, you would see it's it's a broad problem.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: So if we wanted to to push into any of those particular challenges, one of them might be the uh I mean young, restless, and reformed was kind of you know, these sort of now archaic kind of terms, but um the Machin's Warrior Children.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: I would went to Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: John Frame, notable theologian, philosopher, uh wrote a kind of um diatribe against so many generations of Westminster graduates who would come out and uh just fought battles everywhere, and they were just the most belligerent and kind of aggressive, you know, seeking out battles wherever they could find them.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: And there is a a strong temptation for anyone entering Bible college and particularly for young men to go, right, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go and get some ammunition.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: And this ammunition is gonna serve me well.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: What what would you say in that situation?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: What is the the sort of what what what's the sermon you would want to give?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: What's the thing you would want to say to a not just an individual student who took you around, a classroom of students, a year group, a cohort.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Not just as they well, as they start their theological studies.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: I reference it in the article that I'm the kind of person who of course would choose a Bible college that says be right and persist, because I love to be right.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I tell the story about uh an old girlfriend of mine used to finish a number of different arguments that we had, like totally fed up and in full of exasperation, she just says, Oh Glenn, you're just so right, and then she'd storm off, and I would think I'd won.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, convinced you.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: What does that make you then?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right, well, you know, chalk another one up to Glenn.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and and when those marriage counsellors say, you know, you know it's it's the it's the cliched kind of advice that's given all the time.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, would you rather be right or happy?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always thinking, well, how can I be happy if I'm not right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I I totally identify with that to the point that before I went to to Bible college, um I um my there were there was a a number of things that just sort of fell apart all at once.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was at all Salis Langham Place, I was looking into pursuing full-time pastoral ministry in the UK when I got deported.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then the same week that I got deported, my girlfriend of four years said, Glenn, I don't want Jesus anymore and I don't want you.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'd I've been hoping to marry her, and all of a sudden that falls apart.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: I go back home and discover that my parents are going through a very messy divorce that I had little you know um inkling was was happening, but it was happening um very, very dramatically and devastatingly, and and then went into a church situation in which church abuse was happening and um all sorts of splits were happening.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: And yet I fell on my face in in depression, not so much because of all that life stuff that was happening around, but because there were certain theological arguments that were happening.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that was what that was what was absolutely consuming me and occupying me when I should have been living my life and and facing the tragedies that were going on, wound up in a counselor's office, and my counselor after after a little while kind of pointed me to Jeremiah chapter two and said, Look, this is what we're all like.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord says, You've committed two sins, my people.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: You've you've forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and you've dug for yourself broken systems, broken wells that can hold no water.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, you know, therefore, um you're thirsty right now, um, but there's two problems in your life, Glenn.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: You've you've forsaken Jesus and you're you're seeking life in other things.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: What it what are you seeking life in right now?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt very, very keenly what the issue was, and I was able to articulate.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I I need people to read the Bible the same way I do.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I said, What do I do about that?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, you need to repent of it.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I can't and the the the strength of me saying I I can't sort of showed me the the hooks that it got into.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: Everything else is going wrong in my life, but what do I really need?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: I really need people to re read the Bible the same way I read the Bible.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I I came to see, no, I actually don't need that because I want to be valiant for truth, why?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be a warrior for Christ, why?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: For Christ?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: For the truth, no, for me.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: To be right and to be seen to be right.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I just recognized how ugly that was.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually I drove home from that session chuckling to myself.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been like in a slough of despond.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I end it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Chuckling, repenting for this whole idea of being right and persisting, as though this was my identity.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: And does that mean I don't still hold those biblical convictions?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: I still hold those biblical convictions, but hopefully it's less about me now, and it genuinely is about releasing people into the glory of Jesus in all scriptures.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully that that kind of helps people.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I guess just the self-righteousness is is death.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's absolute death.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, maybe maybe I'd preach to them from Jeremiah 2 or some or somewhere else, but I I would just say you you want to be right theologically.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: And just be very suspicious of your flesh.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then I look out at the culture and I just I just see because we want to be right, we build these tribes, we have these them and us.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: We be we become very narrow, very insular, we put people outside the camp, we have our little shibboliths, we don't play nicely with other Christians.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because they not only do not have our same theology, they don't they don't even have our same ministry philosophy.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: So that self-righteousness, that that sort of the unearned theological self-righteousness that we have.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'd have a go at that.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think with with men in that situation, they're generally studying with their careers ahead of them.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: Their ministry is, you know, f just one of pure potential.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so what am I here to do?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm here to be trained up, and I'm gonna be trained well enough that I can, you know, be the best I can be, a man of God thoroughly equipped for every good work.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so I basically looking at what what's possible, what is possible for me to do.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I suppose yeah, just asking some of those questions around what is would you rather that Christ was proclaimed or that you got to preach, you know, and and the challenge of, you know.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: I remember I'm interviewing you.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I went to the channel.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: No, you talked to you.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: I was just thinking, yeah, there was someone wrote an article, um, oh, I think it must have been for the GoCo, the Gospel Coalition, on storytelling and children.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm sure I texted you about this, and I said Oh, look, look what look where she went.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: She went to Nathan talking to David about his adultery with Bathsheba.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then she talked about John the Baptist and Herod and Herodias.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: I do that.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: She talked about C.S.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis stealing past Watchful Dragons.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's my thing.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, do would you rather the glorious truth was revealed to refresh and delight and then and and enliven the church?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: Or is it you who has to kind of do it?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that you know, to have those things taken from you and to be out of action in a way, and to be told, you know, this is Jesus' church, and he's he's quite capable of running it.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and other people are quite capable as well.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and praise God for that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not a happy thing, yeah, is it?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like on the blokes worth watching conveyor belt.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it it it is as you know, Senpei, notice me, notice me, you know, and uh it's just it's just training your eyes on all the wrong things and making you competitors with people who are actually you know companions on the way.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we all you know, I used to say to my Westminster classmates, you know, you you realize we all get an MDiv at the end of this.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like they're only gonna hand out one.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um gotta get it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, that that sense the very ugly kind of you know uh uh pride that kind of kicks in as people go into it, and then you make you know train train those guys up.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's awful, it's gonna be really ugly.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: They have to be sort of brought brought brought to that point, as you say, Jeremiah 2.13.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, let's go to the other one you mentioned, which I think is probably more of an evangelistic ministry, is thinking about this stuff.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, a dead Christ and a living resolve, and so gospel presentations which sort of say uh Jesus has done the cross thing.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: Over to you, Glenn.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like how do we if you get an opportunity to speak on that, what do you say?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: It it it's but because it is it is it is everywhere, whether it's the four points of the bridge diagram or um it it it it is such a problem because it's it's kind of reverse engineering your gospel from heaven and hell, which are realities and and and must be faced.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um but so often it it's like well you you want to go to the good place and not the bad place, and and that is kind of the the end goal.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: So your end is not Christ, you know, your your end is the good the good place, however that's defined.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Jesus is is nice that he gets you there, but he's instrumental.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he might be central in this instrumental sense, but you're still using him to get what you really want, which is the the good life, the good future, whatever whatever it is, or or God, but God defined Christlessly.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so you've just you've got to begin with Jesus.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: If Jesus is going to be the end of your your your your heart, if he's gonna be the the goal of what you want in life, then you've kind of got to begin with him rather than him coming in the middle to fix a problem that gets you this other thing that you want, which is eternal life or forgiveness or fire insurance or whatever it is.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you gotta you've gotta kind of begin with Jesus.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: You've gotta not finish with the cross, you know, you've got you've gotta have a living Christ, yeah.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, who is inviting you to himself rather than inviting you to the the goodie bag of of abstract blessings over there.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I'm I'm struggling not to describe 321 at this point.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, you you wanna put you wanna put Jesus at the center and not just so Sinclair Ferguson's got a great line in in the whole Christ.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: He says too many gospels are every blessing through Jesus Christ.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: Which can sound incredibly Christ-centered.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, every every blessing is coming through Jesus Christ, but then it's Jesus' instrumental to get you the other stuff that you really want.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he's he says the real gospel is every blessing in Jesus Christ.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Which is, you know, God is the gospel as as sort of John Piper puts it, and and in Christological focus, you know, Christ Christ is the gospel, Christ is the offer, Christ for you.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: And that then leads us on to worship as the kind of activity par excellence of the church.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that as opposed to this kind of perpetual, it's always lowest common denominator evangelism when we gather on a Sunday morning.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: So so what it give us a taste of that worshipful gathering of church.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: What is the last time when you just thought, here we are, and we are worshiping?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what was the last time that you I mean, I was I was at a church where a guy just doing the prayers.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I was preaching, so it was just a guy doing the prayers who just he just had a big vision for God and he he apparently loved God.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it was evident that he loved God.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I was on my knees.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Literally um thanking God, enjoying God, you know, and so um it it it it should be in all sorts of aspects of church life, and I I think in our sort of church circles we're sort of defined by what we're not.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: When when we're not the Catholics, we're not the liberals, we're not the charismatics.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: We're the evangelicals, and and so and so it's it sounds really strange to our charismatic brothers and sisters, yeah.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: But like almost the the music is like the last place we want to find intimacy with God because we leave that to the other people.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um we just you know we sing truths to one another to edify one another.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I know are you worshipping God in the sun?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: That is weird when people do that, isn't it?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: When they sing at you in your surfing.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, but yeah, yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because which one is it?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like Colossians and Ephesians, one one of them says sings psalms to God, and the other says sing hymns to one another.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um, so you know, there's biblical warrant for it, but um or when people say the grace to you, and you no one's concentrating on the words as like the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with who have I left out?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to I want to say, can we say it once and then look around afterwards?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, because that's the yeah, the staring and the saying at the same time is quite difficult.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: So is there a verticality to our meetings?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a verticality to the to the worship?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or has it all got to be horizontalized and that sort of thing?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and so like you really want that and you know, I mean the the EMA, the evangelical ministry assembly that really blew the doors off 17 years ago was John Piper there, and and just speaking about preaching as worship, I am I am worshipping Christ from the pulpit.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is what I'm doing.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's different to I'm explaining and applying the passage.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and so we we we we just we lack this this verticality, and it's it's it's like we've we've fallen off entirely one side of the horse in 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul says, you know, when when an outsider comes in, um you know, Paul Paul does say translate your tongue so they understand what's going on.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's meant to be an understandability to what's going on, but to the end that they fall down and say, God is really among you.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: Not oh, I I followed most of that.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, those accessibility scale.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, we we don't have the God is really among you thing.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: And we do with some of our you know terminologies, there's some wonderful actualies when people say, you know, where where do you go to church?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, the church is everywhere.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Where's your church?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, church is the people, yeah, actually.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: Actually.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um one great sort of phrase my mum will use, or question my mum will use when she meets someone, finds out they're a Christian, she will say, Where do you worship?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: And just that sense that of course the the carnivoro critique is uh worship's the whole of life.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: 24 7, actually.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_03: But to gather for worship as a as the conscious act of the church to and and that point of worship then becomes the place in which we're refreshed by the gospel, as you said, hearing the prayers of someone who is who is praying with a with a rich theological understanding.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: And with adoration.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: And with yeah, with worship.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we boil when we teach kids to pray, you know, we we we will do um teaspoon prayers, TSP.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, sorry, please.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: PST for psst.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, just if you want another one.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: Please, sorry, thank you.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: But where's I love you?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like like in terms of um, yeah, thank you, sorry, please are all phrases that you teach children from very early on.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: I love you is also and it's also a massive part of prayer.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: But we boil things down, so adoration is is has no longer you know got a place for us.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for this conversation.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry that uh it's taken up so much of other people's time.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: And uh please join us again.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we love you.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: We love you.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's how we love you.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's mainly we love you.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we'll finish there.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, Glenn.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Nate.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: Bye-bye.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's the end of the show.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Again, always appreciated.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you would like to get in touch with the show, you can email us at infospeaklife.org.uk.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe some of the discussion today or the article really spoke to you.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have some questions off the back of it.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'd like to push back on a few things.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're very welcome to get in touch.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: We always welcome feedback.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's all from me.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: God bless, and see you next week.